These are a tribute to Starvin’ Arvin’s in Grand Junction – the originator of the Green Supreme.  I was missing them the other day and decided to try my hand at making up my own.  It helped that I had some green chili on hand (leftover from the camping trip potluck the night before).

WHAT YOU NEED:

• eggs – scrambled, over easy, sunny side up, filled with garlic, whatever your preference
• green chili – you will need LOTS of this!  Well, if you are like us anyway.  Check out the recipe here
• sour cream
• cheddar cheese
• fluffy biscuits (we made ours with some cheddar inside – sooooo good!)

Basic Bisquick biscuits work great – just don’t roll them out.  You want all of those nooks and crannies to catch everything.   Put 1 to 3 biscuits on each plate – depending on the size of the biscuits and the appetites you are serving.

<biscuits>

Lay an egg or two over and around the biscuits.

<eggs & biscuits>

Cover both with lots of green chili.  Then add some more   Oh, and cheese.  Generously sprinkle the cheese over the eggs and the chili.  Top with a dollop of sour cream.

<all together now>

Voila!  These are soooo good.  Not quite heuvos rancheros, more than just eggs and chili, and just right.

Part of the beauty of these is that you can make most of it a day or so ahead & just warm it up.  Makes it good for a group.

This is one of the more basic batters for crepes, but whe you don’t have a lot on hand and you want a crepe, it does the job!

• 2 eggs
• 2 cups flour (Wondra is recommended, but any will work)
• 2 cups water (we often do 1/2 milk)
• 2 Tbsp. melted butter
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

Combine ingredients in a blender and blend for 3-5 minutes, or until very well blended and frothy.

Let it sit for 20 minutes to 1 hour.

Over med-high heat, warm up a crepe pan or 10″ fry pan and add 1 Tbsp butter.  Pour about 1/2 cup of batter in and swirl it around the sides and bottom of the pan.  Let it sit until the sides begin to pull away from the pan.  At this point I flip the crepe, but some say that “isn’t proper”.

The crepe should slide out of the pan easily.

Fill with your choice of fruits, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, nutella & bananas, etc, or go the savory route with an egg crepe (just a whipped egg made in the same way), caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms, salsa and cheese, etc.

The basic crepe is a wonderful canvas upon which to add a variety of flavors.  Make up a bunch and freeze or refrigerate them for later!

So good…

I was awakened this morning to the industrious sounds of my husband and daughter making these for the rest of the family.  They are an amazing smell to wake up to, and I thought I’d share them.  Oh yeah, they taste pretty good too.

The Dough:

• 1.5 cups unbleached white flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, chilled and cut into pieces
• 3/4 cup milk or apple juic

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Stir together the flours, baking powder, soda and salt in a medium bowl.  Cut in the butter using a pastry blender ot two knives used scissor style, or a fork, until the mixture is grainy.  Stir in enough milk to form a moist dough.  You may not use all of it.  You want to be able to plop it from a spoon.

The Filling:

• 1 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp. unbleached white flour
• 2 Tbsp. softened butter
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar

Using 2 lightly oiled baking sheets (or with 2 silicone mats)  form each biscuit from a teaspoon of dough and drop in onto the baking sheet about 2 inches apart.  Make a small depression in the center and fill it with 1/2 tsp of the filling.  Top with another teaspoon of dough, and another 1/2 teaspoon of filling.  Do this with all of the dough.

Bake at 400F until flakey and lightly browned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can make these ahead and keep the dough and filling separate in the fridge.  IN the morning preheat the oven, assemble and bake hte biscuits.

You can also freeze some of the combined biscuits before baking them .  Just let them stand at room temp. for 10 minutes prior to baking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This recipe is from the Breakfast In Bed – 90 Recips for Creative Indulgence by Jesse Ziff Cool.

This recipe comes down from my husband’s Grandmother – each year she would make a Christmas tree out of rolls, complete with green frosting.  She passed away, and no one had a cinnamon roll tree this year.  I knew I had the recipe somewhere, and I just found it, so I’m sharing it with you.

• 1 cup milk
• 4 Tbsp butter
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 pkg active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup  warm water to dissolve yeast
• 3-4 cups sifted flour
• cinnamon
• brown sugar
• more butter
• walnuts, raisins, cranberries or apples as desired.

In a large bowl combine sugar, salt and butter.  Heat up milk, and when it is hot pout it into the bowl over dry ingredients.  Mix until dissolved.

Dissolve yeast in warm water.

Beat egg and add to milk mixture, then add yeast.  Add 3-4 cups sifted flour, enough to make a soft dough.

Put into a well greased bowl and let stand in a warm place until doubled in size (at least 1 hour).

Knead down and roll out to 1/2-inch thick.

Spread with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, fruits and nuts, leaving one edge clean.

Roll up, starting at the edge opposite the clean edge.  Using your finger, rub a bit or water on the clean edge and seal it to the roll, pinching lightly.

Cut into 1″ slices using dental floss (slide the floss under the roll and bring the ends up around the roll and cross them above it to cut the dough).

Place on a greased cookie sheet and let rise for another hour.

Bake at 375F for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can use your favorite frosting or icing for these, but we usually use Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting.  To make the Christmas tree, set the uncooked rolls out on a jelly roll pan in a triangle shape with 2 rolls at the base for the trunk of the tree.  Grandma often put candied fruits or candy on top of the frosting as ornaments.

I was thinking about using my sourdough starter to make dinner rolls last night, but I didn’t get it started in time – isn’t that the usual problem with starter bread? While I was looking at recipes though, cinnamon rolls kept showing up alongside the dinner rolls in google. I love google, it is where I turn for inspiration for just about everything.

The recipe I found was for a bread machine – which I refuse to use – so I have modified it for those of us who are making things by hand.

So now I had the rolls, but I don’t like the old powdered sugar & water frosting. Cinnamon rolls (like carrot cake) needs to have cream cheese frosting or caramel. Or both. Back to google I went this morning. What I found borders on the divine.

Next time you have an evening to pre-plan for breakfast, or you just want to spoil your family, this is a great recipe!

For the rolls:

• 1 cup sourdough starter – room temp.
• 3/4 cup warm milk
• 2 tablespoons butter – very soft
• 1 egg – room temp (or warmed up in a bowl of hot water)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup evaporated cane sugar
• 3-1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 1 tsp active dry yeast

for the filling:

• 2 Tbsp butter – very soft
• 1 Tbsp butter – melted
• 1/4 cup evaporated cane juice – divided
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• cinnamon

In a large bowl, combine the starter with the milk, butter and eggs. Stir these up until they reach a soupy consistency. Add in the sugar, salt and yeast. Stir until combined. Add in the flour, 1 cup at a time. If it gets too hard to stir, dump it out onto a lightly floured countertop and knead the rest of the flour in.

Knead for a few minutes, until the four is all incorporated and the dough is no longer sticky.

Put unto an oiled rising bucket or bowl and put it into your cold oven for 5 hours or overnight. Leave the light off. You want this to have a sow rise overnight, but not as cold as the refrigerator. Mine had just doubled overnight.

In the morning, dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out in a rectangle to a 1/2 to 3/4″ thickness. Let it rest for a couple of minutes like this.

While the dough is resting, prepare your pan. I used a 9″ square baker and a mini loaf pan. In the baking pan, spread 1 Tbsp of the butter in the bottom of the pan so that it is covered with a thin layer. Get the sides and corners too. Sprinkle 1/3 of the sugar and 1/3 of the brown sugar into the bottom of the pan.

Back to the dough. Gently spread the remaining soft butter over the dough, adding the melted butter when you have it mostly covered. Be careful to leave one long end free of butter so you can seal the roll.

Sprinkle the sugar over the butter so that is covers the dough – you may need a bit more or less. Do the same with the brown sugar – sprinkling it with your hands. Cover the whole thing with ground cinnamon. I like a lot of cinnamon, some don’t like as much. Use the cinnamon to your taste. If you want them, now is the time to add dried fruit or nuts.

Roll the dough up, starting at the long end OPPOSITE the bare edge. When you get to the edge that has no butter, etc, on it, get your finger wet and run it down the edge to help it stick. Press it with your fingers to seal it.

Get a length of dental floss that is about 18″ long. Slip it under the end of the log and bring your hands up and cross them, slicing the dough cleanly. I made mine about 1″ to 1-1/2″ thick. Do this down the length of the dough, filling the pan.

I used about 2/3 of the roll as cinnamon rolls, and left the rest whole and tossed it into a mini loaf pan and baked it as cinnamon swirl bread. yum!

Let them sit to rise for about 20 minutes before pre-heating your oven. Preheat your oven to 350F. Before putting the rolls into the oven, I spread a bit of butter over the tops and sprinkled with brown sugar and drizzled with agave nectar. I like caramel-y rolls.

Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and continue to bake for 15 minutes, or until the rolls begin to brown.

These can be turned over into a pan and served as caramel rolls as-is, or you can add cream cheese frosting.

For the frosting:

• 1- 8 oz. pkg cream cheese
• 1 cup sugar – white or powdered works fine
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar, salt and vanilla until smooth. In a separate chilled bowl, whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Add to the cream cheese mixture and whip just to combine – about 30 seconds.

Yep, that’s it.

Be careful when whipping the cream that you don’t over whip it and make butter… although for cinnamon rolls, that would be really tasty too. Starting with a well-chilled metal bowl helps.

So, now your rolls are out of the oven – perfectly caramel-y – and you have this big bowl of frosting. Spread it on thick. Then add some more. The rolls are still warm, so some of the frosting will melt down into them, making a deliciously creamy caramel in the bottom. Since you have just a teeny bit of frosting left you have a choice. You can either lick the bowl clean, or save it to dip fruit into. Or put a bit on each plate for people to add more to their already-covered rolls. They will love you for it.

No, this is not a low-fat recipe. But it is a tasty treat on days that you just want to splurge a little. It is very easy to put together, and in the morning it takes just over an hour start to finish – including baking time. If you start them in the afternoon you can put the pan of rolls into the refrigerator overnight and pull them out when you get up and turn the oven on. If you are using a stoneware pan, you will need it to warm up first though – just a reminder. Metal has no problem going into a hot oven still a little cold.

Let me know what you think! I’m going to go have another roll…

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so you need to make sure it’s a good one!

The kids are heading back to school next week, so we are enjoying the last few days of having “weekend breakfast” during the week, and today was no exception!

I came across a recipe for Mayan Hot Chocolate… something that I have always loved. Yes, the Aztecs invented hot chocolate, or Xoclatl as they called it. This isn’t completely authentic as it often had red peppers in it as well, but this gives you a good “south of the border” flavor. There is mote history on the linked page…

2 ounces (squares) 100% chocolate (baker’s or unsweetened)
1 cup hot water
3 tablespoons honey
dash salt
3 cups hot milk
4 sticks cinnamon bark
Chop the chocolate and heat it in the water until melted. Add honey, salt, and beat the hot chocolate water with a balloon wire whip as you add th warmed milk. To make it more frothy and give more food value, you can beat up an egg or two, add hot chocolate to it, then pour it into the chocolate cooking pot and continue to whip, (but this isn’t authentic). Serve the hot chocolate in mugs with cinnamon-bark stick stirrers in each.

Of course, with the kids drinking it, I had to add a bit more sugar to it, but this dark-chocolate loving girl thought it bordered on the divine! I used a dash of ground cinnamon instead of cinnamon sticks because that’s what I had.

Alongside this delicious confectionery one of the small ones wanted pancakes… and eggs… oh, and why not toss some bacon into the mix too!

So, I got out the bacon (from a locally raised pig – so much better than the store bought stuff!) and started that in the pan while I mixed up the ‘cakes. When the bacon was done, I cracked a few eggs into the pan with the leftover bacon grease (in my opinion, the hands-down, best way to have a fried egg!) and set them fry with the yolks intact. Then I flipped them and smashed that yolk bubble. Yum!

Once the eggs were done, giving the pancake batter a few moments to rest of course, I made some good, thick pancakes.

With all of the ingredients, the obvious choice was a pancake sandwich! Yes, pancake, fried egg, 2 strips of bacon, a sprinkling of shredded cheese and another pancake. Delish!

Of course, if you are a die hard syrup person, you can pour syrup over the sandwich and eat it with a fork, but there is something fun about eating pancakes with your hands in this way! It must satisfy that kid that is buried deep down inside.

No, this is not the most heart-healthy of meals, but the kids sure do love it! Perfect for Saturday mornings…

I tried a new breakfast side dish today… and it met with mixed reviews. The adults liked it, the kids… didn’t. I think it was more a texture thing in their case. We had it with bacon, eggs and applesauce (and tea, of course!) and it was a very filling meal!

Oats are one of the best grains for us – and they help reduce cholesterol.  The humble oat kept the Scottish people healthy & strong for centuries, as it was the only grain that would grow in northern Scotland, but they are not often thought of these days. Try these for a new way to enjoy this humble grain.  Adding some cinnamon & sugar or dried fruit makes them more like cookies!

2 cups rolled oats
6 Tbsp. butter or coconut oil
1/4 cup flour (gluten free or rice flour works well too)
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. hot water (with more set aside for later use)

OPTIONAL
2 tsp cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
1 Tbsp. evaporated cane juice

Warm up your griddle on the stove to just above medium. I cooked the bacon on it before making the oatcakes, which greased it nicely for the first few.

Grind the oats into a gritty flour in a food processor. Combine the oats, flour and salt into a mixing bowl (and cinnamon & sugar if using), and using a pastry blender or your fingers, mix the butter into the flour mixture. I also added a tsp or so of bacon fat from the bacon I was cooking.

Add the hot water to the mixture to make a sticky dough – you may need to add a bit more than 2 Tbsp.

Using golf ball sized portions of dough, form flat cakes with your hands. Place them onto your warm, greased griddle and cook 3-5 minutes per side. You may have to re-grease your griddle with every batch. I used coconut oil, as it has a higher burn point than butter, but butter works well also.

The oatcakes should stay a little bit blonde, but the browned butter or bacon grease can add a nice flavor.

Serve warm with butter, honey, jam or applesauce. They are also good with cheese.

These could also make good biscuits for a fruit cobbler.

1 cup pumpkin (plain from a can)
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs or 2 Ener-G Egg Replacers (mixed)
1-1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup raisins or craisins
1/4 cup molasses (optional)

Throw everything (except the raisins/craisins) into a large mixing bowl. Mix until all of the ingredients are well blended together. Add the raisins/craisins and mix a bit more.

Pour the mixture into a greased and floured loaf pan or divide the mixture between twelve greased muffin cups.

Bake at 350F for 50 minutes if baking bread, or 25 minutes for muffins.

Enjoy!

Recipe provided by Lori Rohleder, Barefoot Books Independent Rep. For a catalog or information on starting your own Stallholder business, please email me at rohleder4@aol.com.

This recipe was given to me many years ago. It is the perennial party favorite. We always make up a few & freeze them to have on hand for impromptu gatherings, or they make great hostess gifts! Just wrap in foil, freeze, and tie with a ribbon and gift tag.

Pumpkin Cake Roll
Preheat oven to 375 degrees

3 large eggs
1 Cup sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin
1 tsp lemon juice
3/4 Cup flour
1 tsp baking power
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 Cup walnuts or pecans (optional)

Beat eggs 5 min, gradually beat in sugar. Stir in pumpkin and lemon juice and mix in remaining ingredients. Line jelly roll pan with wax paper and grease. Pour mixture in pan and sprinkle nuts on top.
Bake 12 – 15 minutes at 375 degrees.

Sprinkle towel with powdered sugar and roll . When cool add filling and refrigerate.

FILLING:
½ Cup powder sugar
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix together & spread onto the cooked pumpkin cake. Roll it up and chill.

This can be frozen, wrapped in parchment or waxed paper & aluminum foil, in preparation for the Holidays!

This is a delicious quick bread/cake that is totally toast-able, and absolutely delicious!

5 Tbsp. salted butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup of sour cream
1/2 cup plain vanilla

3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

1 cup of blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and flour an 8-cup loaf pan.

Melt the butter andpour into a large bowl, let cool.

Add sugar, egg, vanilla, sour cream and yogurt and stir together until smooth.

In a mesh strainer or flour duster combine baking soda, baking powder and flour. Add to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.

Fold in berries, and pour into your loaf pan, being sure to pull more of the batter to the corners than the middle.

Bake for one hour to one hour and 15 min – tenting the bread once it has risen to make sure it bakes through.

Allow the bread to cool some before you cut it open so it can finish baking.

Serve with
raspberry butter for a tasty treat!